When metallic return line occurs transient fault, DC protection system will not request fault restart in existing protection logic in Xing-An HVDC Project, which reduces the reliability of DC system. This paper proposes a metallic return line longitudinal differential protection (87MLL) at SIMADYN D platform. This protection acts as the main protection for metallic return line earth fault. This paper uses EMTDC model to simulate earth fault at different power, different fault location, different resistance monopolar metallic return operation. The result shows that the protection has misstrip risk when fault resistance is large, the arc can’t extinguish during DC system restart when DC power is high. By comprehensively considering protection logic design scheme and EMTDC simulation result, we don’t suggest to add 87MLL in Xing-An HVDC Project.